Case Study as a Research Strategy

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• ???? (what)??? (exploratory)
• ????(how) ?????(why)??(causal)
• ????????????????(Defining the research question)

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• ???????????what is my study about?
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• Am I asking a who, what, where, why, or
  how question?
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• ?????????,????????(real-life context)??
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• ????????????,???????????????(triangulation)
• ?????????????????(theoretical propositions)???????
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• ???? ethnographic methods
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• ???? construct validity
• ???? internal validity
• ???? external validity
• ?? reliability

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????? Unit of Analysis

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• ???????????? (pattern-matching)
• several pieces of information from the same case
  may be related to some theoretical propositions
• time-series pattern
• systematic pattern matched with a proposition
• two potential patterns ? two rival propositions

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• Data match one pattern better than they matched
  the other
• how close does a match have to be so as to be
  considered a match?
• Most of the time no statistical analysis
• Hope the different patterns are sufficiently
  contrasting that the findings can be interpreted
  in terms of comparing at least two rival
  propositions

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• Theory development prior to the conduct of any
  data collection
• differ from ethnography or grounded theory
• No guidance can be more misleading
• make their field contacts as quickly as possible
• Theory development as part of the design phase is
  essential for case studies

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• The case study will show why implementation only
  succeeded when the organization was able to
  re-structure itself, and not just overly the new
  MIS on the old organizational structure. (Markus,
  1983)
• a nutshell of a theory of MIS implementation
• The case will also show why the simple
  replacement of key persons was not sufficient for
  successful implementation. (Markus, 1983)
• the nutshell of a rival theory

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• The complete research design embodies a theory
  of what is being studied
• not grand theory in social science
• Goal to have a sufficient blueprint for your
  study (and this requires theoretical
  propositions)
• Theory development takes time can be difficult
• existing works may provide a rich theoretical
  framework for designing a specific case study

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• the purpose of the descriptive effort
• the full but realistic range of topics that might
  be considered a complete description of what is
  to be studied
• the likely topic(s) that will be the essence of
  the description
• answering these questions help you toward
  developing the needed theoretical base

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• Literature provides no conceptual framework or
  hypotheses
• Should be preceded by statements about
• what is to be explored
• the purpose of the exploration
• the criteria by which the exploration will be
  judged successful
• Types (or levels) of theories
• theory of the program vs. the theory of program
  implementation

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• Theory ? Case ? Generalization
• analytic generalization
• statistical generalization
• Cases are not sampling units
• more like experiments
• a previously developed theory is used as a
  template with which to compare the empirical
  results of the case study
• replication two or more cases support the theory

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• Logical tests of any given research design
• Construct validity
• Internal validity
• External validity
• Reliability

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• Establishing correct operational measures for the
  concepts being studied
• tactic phase of research
• use multiple data collection
• sources of evidence
• establish chain of data collection
• evidence
• have key informants composition
• review draft case
• study report

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• Establishing a causal relationship, whereby
  certain conditions are shown to lead to other
  conditions, as distinguished from spurious
  relationships
• tactic phase of research
• do pattern-matching data analysis
• do explanation- data analysis
• building
• do time-series data analysis
• analysis

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• Establishing the domain to which a studys
  findings can be generalized
• tactic phase of research
• use replication research design
• logic in multiple-
• case studies

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• Demonstrating that the operations of a study -
  such as the data collection procedures can be
  repeated, which the same results
• tactic phase of research
• use case study data collection
• protocol
• develop case study data collection
• data base

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• The critical case in testing a well formulated
  theory
• The case represents an extreme or unique case
• The revelatory case
• Holistic versus Embedded study

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• Can be expensive
• Every case should serve a specific purpose within
  the overall scope of inquiry
• Consider as multiple experiments
• following the replication logic, not the sampling
  logic
• Each case selected so that it either
• predicts similar results (a literal replication)
• produces contrasting results but for predictable
  reasons (a theoretical replication)

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• Case studies should not generally be used to
  assess the incidence of phenomena
• A case study would have to cover both the
  phenomenon of interest and its context, yielding
  a large number of potentially relevant variables
• this would require an impossibly large number of
  cases - too large to allow any statistical
  consideration of the relevant variables

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Conducting Case Studies Preparation for Data
Collection

• Prior skills of the investigators
• The training and preparation for the specific
  case study
• The development of a case study protocol
• The conduct of a pilot case study
• Remember case study research is among the
  hardest types of research to do

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Desired Skills (Investigators)

• Case study is easy??
• case be mastered without difficult
• have to learn only a minimal set of technical
  procedures
• any deficiencies in formal, analytic skills will
  be irrelevant
• allow them simply to tell it like it is

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Difficulties

• The data collection procedures are not routinized
• Little room for traditional research assistant
• The continuous interaction between the
  theoretical issues being studied and the data
  being collected
• Take advantage of expected opportunities
• Care against potentially biased procedures

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Basic Required Skills

• Ask good questions - and to interpret the answers
• Be a good listener and not be trapped by his/her
  own ideologies or preconception
• Be adaptive and flexible
• Have firm grasp of the issues being studied
• Should be unbiased by preconceived notions,
  including those derived from theory

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Case Study Protocol

• An overview of the case study project
• objectives, issues, relevant readings
• Field procedure
• credentials access to sites, sources of
  information, procedure reminders
• Case study questions
• the specific questions, table shells
• A guide for the case study report
• outline, format for narrative etc.

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Case Study Questions

• The heart of the protocol
• Differ from those in a survey interview
• the questions are posed to you, the investigator
• each question accompanied by a list of probable
  sources of evidence
• Should reflect the full set of concerns from the
  initial design (only at the single-case level)